Threats and shenanigans

It's been so bitterly cold across most of America lately - in an effort to stay warm, I have been thinking about summertime. When I think about summertime, I start off with images of sandy beaches and umbrella drinks - and usually end up with images of heatstroke and DIC. So, this story came to mind today. Enjoy!

A stray dog was brought to VBB Central once by a Good Samaritan. A real Good Samaritan - the kind who takes financial responsibility for the situation, not the kind who simply moves the problem from his lap to your lap. Anyway. He'd found this dog roaming his neighborhood and he thought it would be a good idea to bring it to us, because it had been outside for so long, he considered it a stray. He asked us to examine it and get it up to date on vaccines. He wanted to adopt it if possible. 

When we examine stray pets, we scan for a microchip, to see if possibly there is an owner somewhere looking for the animal. In this case, we found a chip, and were able to reach the owner - who told our receptionist that while he was unable to leave work at that time to pick up her pet, he would be happy to come get him in the morning. Okey-dokey. The Good Sam paid our bill for the care up to that point and went home, and the dog got put into the boarding kennel for the night. 

The next day, the owner came in to pick up the dog. When presented for the bill for the dog's overnight care (a whopping $23 boarding fee) he went ballistic. In the course of his ranting he expressed the belief that he had expected the care to be free, because it wasn't his choice to bring us the dog. Also, the dog should have been taken to the tax-funded shelter (there isn't one in his township, nor ours for that matter, but this fact was lost on him), and we were insane to expect him to pay. OK then.

So, Dr. VBB attempted to defuse the situation by telling Mr. Deadbeat to just take the dog and go home, and that instead of attempting to collect the boarding fee from him, VBB Central would report the stray dog situation to the township, and the township would handle it from there (historically this means that the township will assess a very large fine from the pet owner - and btw, this dog was not licensed, either, which is another fee). The man continued screaming. It got to the point where clients in the exam rooms with the other veterinarians were becoming fearful for their safety. One client asked "um, how well do you know that guy? are you sure he doesn't have a gun or anything?" At that point Dr. VBB, realizing that Mr. Deadbeat clearly has no intention of leaving, calmly said "if you'd rather stay here and yell instead of taking your dog and going home, I'm going to have to call the police and ask them to escort you off of our property. You are interfering with our business."

The man gets even MORE incensed. He is now asking Dr. VBB for her name, license number, social security number, all kinds of identifying information. He says he is going to "report [her] on the website" and she will lose her license, "why you say call police, you cabeza de mierda, you hate Hispanics, you want la migra send me home? you think I'm illegal? twenty years I'm American citizen! I'll take your license, pendeja!" But when Dr. VBB attempted to respond, the man just kept yelling and screaming over him. The man also refused to accept Dr. VBB's business card, which she offered to him so that he would spell her name correctly when he reported her to the board, of course...

This was going on for at least half an hour. Finally the man and dog went out to his car, and the staff at VBB Central watched warily from the window. That's when we saw the man put the dog into the trunk of his car! Bear in mind it was about 97 F at the time, too - and that car had been out there for at least an hour in the sun at this point. So against her best judgement as far as resolving this situation went, Dr. VBB went back outside and said "please do not do that, it is very dangerous for your dog." So of course he started in again "who do you think you are? you OBSERVE ME? you ain't allowed to observe ME! I'll have your license, pendeja!!" But luckily, while continuing to rant and rave, the man put the dog in the back seat, got in the car, and drove away.

It really kind of ruined that whole weekend at VBB Central though.

That's me in the corner.

So, this one client has been increasingly annoying for over ten years now, and try as I might to gently encourage her from seeking care elsewhere, she is frustratingly loyal to VBB Veterinary Hospital. There are a lot of things about her that annoy me, but hands down the most annoying thing she does is try to get me to attend her church.

In the time I've known her, I've gone from ignoring her church invitations, to politely saying "no thank you", to offering generic excuses along the lines of "I'm sorry, that's simply not possible," to explaining that I have my own place of worship that I prefer, and finally things got to the point where I said "please listen because I am only going to say this one time: I have my own religion. It is not the same as your religion. I not only am not interested in changing my religion, but I am also personally offended by your continued attempts to solicit my participation in your religion. Please stop this, or I'm not going to be able to be your veterinarian any more, and I'd feel terrible about ending our professional relationship over this." 

One might have thought that would put an end to the problem, right? 

Or, failing that, one might have thought I'd be cynical and jaded enough NOT to expect her to cut it out.

Sadly, one would have been incorrect both times, and I was bitterly disappointed that this client continued her attempts even MORE vigorously. Unfortunately the Boss Behaving Badly around here put the kibosh on the idea that I might fire this client...

So - imagine my response to this voicemail:

Hi Dr. VBB! This is Ms. Prossy Letize calling about my new little doggy. Well you know I don't get around so well anymore and I'm mostly in the chair all day, and little Barkmeister has taken to, well - you know.  He jumps up and [Sotto voce] humps me [normal voice again] for 20 minutes and I can't get him off of me!  What do you think could be wrong? Have I made some kind of mistake in his upbringing?  I don't really want to bring him in, unless you have some idea of what might be wrong with him that you could treat. Let me know what you think. Bye now.

Words fail me.

The worms crawl in...

The VBB Mailbag has been filling up again with tales of woe from our CBB (colleagues behaving badly...)

Here's one from the harried hands of Dr. CM:

Straight out of school, I started working for Banfield (don’t get me started).  In case you don’t know anything about this amoeba-like monstrosity, Banfield is a corporate run chain of hospitals located inside PetSmart stores.  This creates a weird dynamic between the PetSmart management and the hospital, as clients fail to understand that the two are independent of each other and routinely take their Banfield complaints to PetSmart management.  On the other hand, managers may come to us when faced with odd complaints themselves, as in this one instance.

PetSmart Manager: “Dr. can you talk to this guy?  He is on his way in, and he is on a rampage!  He is claiming the dog food we sold him gave his dog worms.”

Me:  “Sure, send him over when he gets here.”

Guy shows up and I hear him loudly discussing the issue with two of the PS managers.  In about 5 minutes, the original manager heads over to us with a baggy in her hand, angry guy trailing behind her.

She hands me the bag..

PS Manager:  “Here is the worm that Mr. Biofail found in his dog’s stool today.”

Me (taking a quick peek at the “worm”):  “Sir, I can absolutely guarantee that your dog did not get this worm from his food.  In fact, this worm did not come from your dog.”

Mr. Biofail:  “Yes, it did.  It was right there on his poop this morning.”

Me:  “I understand that, but there is NO WAY that this ALIVE, WIGGLING CATERPILLAR came from your dog.  It may have fallen from a tree onto the poop, or was already on the ground and crawled onto…”

Mr. Biofail (voice raised):  “This worm came from the dog food I bought here and I want a refund!!!”

Me:  “Well, you can take that up with PetSmart, but your dog did not eat this ALIVE worm from the food, have it travel all the through his GI tract, and then poop it out STILL ALIVE.  That is not possible.  So I will never say that the food you bought here gave your dog worms.”

Mr. Biofail proceeded to drive to another store with his happily wiggling caterpillar and try the same stunt.  Thankfully, the manager had alerted other local stores…..

What's the time?

I don't know about you, but I'm a busy person. I have 3 kids, 2 pets (8 if you count the ones in the tank actually), and a husband. I do more than just blog and practice veterinary medicine and take care of family matters. I'm involved with the administration of the kids' school, at our house of worship, and my husband's business. No, I don't know how I do it - but the important thing is, I do in fact do it. And when I'm doing it, I'm respectful of other people's time, because I know oh-so-very well how irritating frustrating - well, if I'm being completely honest let me just say how INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANNOYING it is when people act like THEIR time is more important than YOUR time.

Ahem.

Seasoned readers will see where this is going, I'm sure.

So, yeah. The other day I had scheduled myself such that the last appointment was 45 minutes before closing, because I had somewhere I had to be, and I wanted to be darn sure I'd be able to be there (so as not to waste the time of the other 12 people I'd be meeting, who were going to be waiting for my arrival).  Of particular note is that the pet who held that appointment was boarding in our hospital, and required an examination, but the owner had wanted to be present for the examination and "to discuss a few problems" the pet had, so the owner had scheduled this appointment for the time he planned to pick up the pet at the end of boarding. The appointment time rolled around and the client was not there. As is our practice, the receptionist phoned the home and mobile numbers on file to see if the client was en route. There was no answer. Fifteen minutes went by, and the client was not there. After 25 minutes had gone by I figured I'd at least examine the pet, and just discuss my findings once the owner arrived. As I finished examining the pet, we heard our voicemail pick up (it does this on speakerphone - we stop answering the phone 30 minutes before closing. This fact, by the way, is well advertised) and the voice of my client came through. "Hi there! Just wanted to let you know I *do* still plan to pick up Fluffinator, and be there for our appointment, but you know, I'm not going to be there til about ten after seven, so, you'll need to wait for me. See you soon!"

Interesting message, there. The thing is that our office closes at 7:00 PM. This appointment had been made for 6:15 PM. The client just expected that we'd be more than happy to accomodate a 55-minute late arrival time for an appointment, after our normal business hours, without even a please or a thank you. Honestly it kind of blew my mind because although I may vent a lot about how people are so FUCKING ANNOYING all the time, for some crazy reason I still expect that people will actually behave in a civil manner to me. I know, I know - I'm the crazy one. Well, if you can't beat'em...

So anyway, as it happened, the Big Boss Lady was standing there and I looked at her and said "listen - my findings are written up, you can feel free to stay and discuss with her, or not, at your pleasure - but I'm leaving because people are waiting for me and I don't feel comfortable making them wait." She was fine with that. She said she was going to call the client and tell her if she couldn't come in before closing, not to come til the next day. I'm not sure if she actually did that or not, though.

Just to be 100% clear, by the way - my physical exam of this pet did not reveal any abnormalities. If I had picked up something potentially dangerous, I would have notified the people waiting for me that I had been unavoidably detained. But I saw no reason to do so in this case, especially given the massive sense of carelessness that had oozed through our telephone's speaker with the client's message.

So, yeah. That happened.
Please join me in the comments section with your answer to the question in the subject line!

Guest Post: VBB Student Edition!

We received the following submission for anonymous guest posting from a current student of veterinary medicine. Thank you, young grasshopper.

No Brainer

 

Set the scene:  12:30 pm on emergency; shift should end at 11:00 pm

Characters:  One exhausted senior vet student, several busy emergency/critical care technicians, one exhausted intern… and the smartest client in the world!

Phone call on the Emergency/Urgent info line: 

Client: “Hi, I’m calling to see if I should bring my dog in right away or if we can wait a few days to see our normal vet”

Student (stifling a yawn):  “Can you tell me a bit about your dog and what your worried about?”

Client:  “Well, there a few things I am a little worried about; she has blood in her eyes, she can’t see, she is coughing up white mucous, she is having trouble breathing, she can’t walk, she hasn’t eaten in two weeks *deep breath She won’t pee and I haven’t seen her poo for 5 days, her breath smells bad and she isn’t responding to attention…  Also she is kinda old…

Student: (mouth open, eyes wide): .…..

Client: “well, do you think her symptoms are serious enough I should think about bringing her in?” (hint of frustration in her tone)

Student: “I highly recommend bringing her in right away!  It sounds like she is critical condition, can you be here soon?”

Client:  “Weeeeelllll… how much does it cost?”

Student: “ the exam fee is blah blah and any testing will be additional”

Client: “hmmmm I think I will wait until I can make an appointment with my regular veterinarian”

Student: (face-palm)

What was the point of the conversation you ask?  I’ve been trying to figure that out since I talked to this woman! If you or a loved human had these symptoms (even one of the above symptoms) you would be on the way to the hospital, why is there even a question that an examination by a veterinarian is warranted?  Moral of the story, don’t call the nearest veterinary teaching hospital (or emergency hospital) at night around bedtime to ask if symptoms are severe enough to be seen.  If your pet has a symptom you would worry about for yourself, take it to the doctor for love of all that is holy (and for F’s sake)!!

          -sadly the above conversation did happen as related here-